


Awakened

by Shatterpath



Category: Bionic Woman (2007), Shadowrun
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crack, Gen, Original Character(s), Shadowrun - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-24
Updated: 2010-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-26 09:40:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/281527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shatterpath/pseuds/Shatterpath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Picture yourself in the Seattle of Shadowrun. Ruth wakes up one day to find that she's been transformed into an Ork. How does she handle this transformation? How does it affect her job?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Awakened

**Author's Note:**

> The summary is also my 12-24-10 crackmeme prompt from ariestess.

This world has seen insane changes. I know, for I've been present for many of them. They merge and flow like water in my hazy mind, blurring and mixing into insane imagery. My sense of time is skewed and the fractured funhouse of a ride in my mind seems endless.

When at last I open my eyes to an ordinary, antiseptic white room crowded with technology, it's almost a relief. Almost…

The buzzing of machinery is irritating and light is so infernally bright! Outraged, my iron self-control in tatters, I can't control the animal need to escape, flailing away from the technological embrace of the medical equipment surrounding me like a forest. Endlessly sore and so stiff I can barely move, I fight past those discomforts like a good soldier and get sitting up, swinging my legs over the side of the bed.

Only to crash into a heap on the cold floor.

What the hell is the matter with me? Why does my body feel so strange, so alien? Nothing feels right, my own flesh and bones like an oversized suit. My jaw aches abysmally, not helped by a mouthful of hard, awkward equipment I can't figure out how to spit out.

There are footsteps coming, I can hear it past the roar of panic in my brain, and training takes over. Never let them take you alive. I have to be in the custody of an enemy, whoever that might be during this pay period, and I must do something about it.

Scrabbling and squinting in the fierce glare, I inch towards a blurry shape, grabbing a pole, as a weapon, barely feeling the needle in my arm yanking loose. What the hell have these savages dressed me in? Like a loose suit of uncomfortable, irregular plates, it presses into my flesh, relentless over nearly every square inch of my body when I touch something else. The pole I've grabbed smashes across my face as I yank it to me defensively, jarring my skull.

Except my flesh and bones feel… wrong somehow.

Where the metal hits me, the impact rattles through bones too thick, muscles too heavy, a jaw malformed like a maniacal sculptor left alone with living clay.

I barely register bodies pouring into the room as I stare at my hands, white-knuckled around the pole. The extremities are huge, almost swollen, the skin thick and knobby with some sort of elephantine dermis that looks bizarre on my no longer quite human shape. But they are mine; I recognize that old knife scar on the left wrist from that theater in Borneo before the world went insane ten years ago.

"Ruth?" The familiar voice silences the hum of voices, a soothing balm to my ears, stilling my panic and my deformed body. "Hey Ruth? It's me, Jae. It's okay, really. I know this must be a shock, but I can explain… sort of."

"What's," my words trail off at the rasping, low rumble of the foreign voice inside my chest and skull. The mouthful of whatever has malformed my jaw makes words difficult. "What's happened to me, Jae?"

"It started nearly three months ago," Jonas says calmly from the doorway and the assembled crowd parts like the Red Sea for Moses. "Seems we've hit another level of mana and nearly a full ten percent of the world's population has changed. You've been luckier than a lot, Ruth."

He said months. Months? Calmed by the presence of these familiar associates, I wrestle down the panic, concentrating on the death grip my foreign hands have on the IV pole. My whole body has grown large, dense and heavy, my skin rough and thick with the strange dermal deposits. Long bones ache even now, a deep ache like growing pains gone wild. With calm my eyes finally adjust, the blinding radiance of the room fading somewhat, though I suspect it's not the room that has changed, but my vision.

Then I see it, the blurry reflection in the stainless steel cabinet and all I can do is stare. My face is wholly unfamiliar, yet I recognize myself instantly. The shaggy blonde hair tells me I need a trim, my eyes are even more yellow, even the whites looking faintly jaundiced. My skull is heavier, almost monstrous…but it's the teeth that are truly shocking. Like some primordial beast, my bottom incisors have grown like tusks, jutting over my upper lip, pulling my mouth out of shape, transforming me into some sort of child's nightmare.

"Oh god," I whisper, some part of me stunned that I can even speak with the new dental configuration. "What am I?"

Jae's hand on my knee feels warm… and small. He stood taller than me once, willowy and stronger than his build suggested. One of only four elves in the entire Burket Mercenary Unit. "Bet I owe some nuyen for medical care," I intone hollowly, staring at my old pal and his wise, sympathetic eyes.

"You're worth it," he smiles sadly and squeezes my forearm, forcing me once again to acknowledge my changed nature.

"The common parlance has become Orks," Jonas says matter-of-factly and gestures one of the burly soldiers in the room to come with him. "A somewhat irreverent and possibly harmful reference to the baddies from the JRR Tolkien books." Between their two strong bodies, they get me to unsteady feet and I'm astonished to be looking down into Jonas' familiar features. Jared, I suddenly recognize the burly kid, smiles hesitantly into my eyes. Swinging my arm up to squeeze his shoulder turns into a solid cuff to the side of his head, but he takes it with only a wince. My longer arms will take some getting used to.

"Sorry, kid, don't know my own strength."

"No problem, boss," he grins cheerfully.

"Orks, huh? Well, I was always curious as hell about the Awakened…"

Weeks later, I've finally stopped cursing my fascination with the Awakened life of this Sixth World. It's taken that long to get even normal functions right. Walking came fairly quickly, but smashing my heavy skull into every possible surface it can now reach has become a regular occurrence. Luckily for me, the heavy dermal deposits are apparently some sort of natural armor and I'm tougher than I used to be. Stronger too, nearly impossibly strong. Unfortunately, I have also grown slow and somewhat clumsy. Though with diligent practice, I have taught this new body to at least remember the basics of my famous dead eye aim.

What I now lack in accuracy, I can make up for in caliber. Before the change there was some heavy artillery unsuited to my physique. Now I can wield heavy metal that tires even Jared. That boy has been my greatest joy since the shocking alteration to self, my buddy and playmate and the only person in the entire unit who can stand up to my physical punishment. And even that powerful young buck has required a few visits to the unit spellcasters for some healing. Right now I have mixed feelings about the spell-slingers since they are so keen on studying me.

I'm not the only one in the unit. Marco from the artillery unit changed like I did, though he kept more of his good looks in my opinion. But we both look like rockstars compared to Grayson in supplies. He is what the media have dubbed Trolls. Massive and gnarled like an oak tree, he stands nearly nine feet tall now and sports stumpy horns in addition to even more exaggerated dental work than we Orks.

Four others in the unit didn't survive the change. It took me a week and a half to steel myself to watch the trid footage and study the photos of the changes we soldiers went through. Reviewing media coverage of April 30th when all of this began is just as sobering. The events since then, the riots and chaos and deaths since are horrifying. Humanity has reacted to its Awakened kin exactly the way any psychologist feared they would.

Many of we new Metahumans have been killed, some have slipped away to dark, forgotten places but too many have been interned in concentration camps the world over. No matter how stoic and experienced I may be about the sort of world I live in, that last idea gives me nightmares.

But now I am ready to face the world, no matter that so much of it will hate me for my changed looks. I even have an emergency new wardrobe since nothing of my old life is suitable for me anymore. Only a few earrings remain in my possession. I even had to replace my bed with something sturdier. Oh well, at least camouflage is sturdy and utilitarian.

Jonas himself is heading up a strange extraction that really isn't our usual fare. He's with a small team of some of our best covert ops while most of the rest of the unit is scattered in smaller jobs in the area. With all of the rioting and chaos, there's no shortage of work for our sort.

Abruptly, Marco taps on the glass door to my office, waiting until I nod at him. My fellow Ork smiles, though the expression still looks awkward somehow on his new face. I know it does on mine. "Jonas is back and he picked up some extra ordinance he wants you to take care of."

"Me?"

Completely confused by the unexpected request from our unit commander, I follow Marco through the familiar catacombs of our unit headquarters. It still baffles me that I'm now larger than he is. I was not a large woman, actually running slightly on the small size. Well, no more. New boots had been the hardest procurement to my new proportions, but at least I'm lucky to not be heavy-chested so that I can forgo that particular need indefinitely.

Whatever I had been expecting, the curvaceous slip of a girl standing beside Jonas in a battered pair of jammie pants, tank top and bare feet isn't it. She doesn't appear afraid, just very, very out of place. When Jonas spots me, he puts a hand on the girl's shoulder and gestures her attention to me. Amidst the bustle of camouflaged bodies, bright blue eyes widen.

Marco and I merely trade long-suffering glances and stride over. The girl is pretty in a suburb, daddy's princess sort of way. She stares silently up at me as we spend a long moment studying one another. There's no horror in her regard, no shock really, just a deep, bright curiosity. Even when I unconsciously smile, she doesn't flinch, merely hesitantly smiles back. Liking the brave inquisitiveness of her, I offer a hand which she takes in hers. The slender fingers are lost in my bulky hand, but there is a shocking strength in her that I note with raised brows.

"Doctor Ruth Truewell. Pleased to meet you."

"Jamie Sommers. The boss here says that you can help me adapt."

"I've had some recent practice with adaptation, yes," I deadpan and her smile shines genuinely now. "Though you look pretty normal to me."

"Looks can be deceiving," she purrs almost flirtatiously, her grip suddenly growing impossibly strong. Only when my brows tighten in reaction does she let up, allowing me to save face in front of the other mercenaries. "I have some enhancements I need to learn to control before I kill somebody."

To test something I think I'm seeing, I swing my free hand in the vicinity of her head. As I suspected by the twitch in her blue eyes, she dodges impossibly face, nearly blurring as she avoids the perceived blow, yanking my bulk into stumbling into her. Parrying as best I can, I brace my weight, shifting her slight frame into a near-dance move that takes away the benefit of her strange strength and speed. The sky eyes register that I have the physical advantage once more and they shade pale with respect and something I can't identify.

"Yes," I tell her quietly, "I can help you."

Again I am blessed by that warm smile. Quirking my awkward grin at the girl I glance around and spot one of the women soldiers, who immediately trots over. "Bet you need the new kid here cleaned up, huh Ruth?"

Most of the unit has gone to great lengths to treat those of us 'Goblinized' as they always did. The effort is appreciated and I nod. "You always were a good mind reader, Donna." Keeping my expression gentle and my smile discrete around my tusks, I return my attention to Jamie. "Go with Donna here and she'll take you to the showers and get you some clothes. I'll have Jonas catch me up on what we know about you."

Dark brows knit as Jamie takes that in and I'm astonished that she seems reluctant to leave me. The kid has barely met me! God, the last thing I need is a pet. Placing a gentle hand on her thinly-clad back, I give Jamie a slight push in Donna's direction.

"Go on, Jamie. I'll catch up soon."

Nodding reluctantly, Jamie follows her minder, still glancing back at me as she is swallowed up by the crowd.

"Remember Andros?" Jonas intones somberly and I whip my head around in surprise.

"Will? What does she have to do with that bastard?"

There is a rule among mercs. You never, ever turn your back on your unit. We have no loyalty except for among ourselves and that betrayal cuts deeply. Not only had we grown to rely on his somewhat insane genius and the lack left us bereft in some R&D, but he'd absconded with many tens of millions of nuyen.

"That girl is his Frankenstein," Jonas says quietly, his eyes stone-cold serious. That would explain the strength and speed. Will had been fooling around with the concept of what cyberware could accomplish. Some small fixes to the unit had performed remarkably well considering how new the tech is, but that girl had moved like a dancer… or a martial artist.

"Or Pygmalion." My reference to the classic tale makes Jonas blink and smirk with as much humor as I've ever seen.

"Yeah, you tagged that one bang on. She was engaged to that maniac and pregnant before whatever was done to her. I think Sarah had him killed."

Ah Sarah Corvus, our rouge guinea pig. After how badly her cybernetic enhancements turned the woman more than a little crazy, I'm not surprised she tracked him down and killed him. I'm actually a little surprised that she didn't take out Jamie as well. "Does Jamie know about Sarah?"

"Not that I could determine."

Only time will tell if that's a good thing or not.

I've nearly finished my paperwork, thank all that's holy that Jonas had found me a keyboard proportionate to my new body, when I get interrupted again. Donna's stepping into my office, grinning warmly where she comes to stand beside the transformed Jamie. The girl looks almost dangerous in our classic green fatigues with her hair drawn back smartly away from those big doe eyes. I don't know why, but this strange little feline woman makes me smile sincerely for what might be the first time since awakening as an Ork.

Jamie smiles shy and a little flirtatious, deepening my warm humor. "Do I pass?"

Laughing shortly, a rusty, unused sound, I stand and stride over to mockingly look her over like some cartoonish inspection. "You look almost respectable, Sommers. Thanks Donna, I'll take it from here."

"Thanks. See you around, Jamie."

"Thank you, Donna!"

I spend the afternoon chatting with Jamie, couching my interview in the conversations that ramble over a wide variety of subjects. She's incredibly smart and better educated than her twenty-three years would suggest. She's just like a cat, curious and wanting my affection without actually asking for it. Even the way she curls up in her chair as though boneless reminds me of a slinky feline. She's brave too, even as fear shines in those expressive eyes. Grayson shows up with lunch held in his massive hands, smiling hesitantly around his great teeth when I grin and greet him jovially. Jamie wins points by taking the initiative to introduce herself, not hesitating to grab his hand and shake it. He makes her look like a china doll against his massive stature, but he's shyly charmed by her.

Taking her down to the sprawling workout room is an eye-opener. In her super-human speed and agility and strength, I can visualize what our future could be. We, the newly Awakened trio and this little slip of a pretty thing could be the most deadly squad in this entire unit.

As though conjured by my thoughts, Grayson and Marco appear as though drawn to me. For a long moment we regard each other across the space, only the sounds of Jamie's physicality a background soundtrack. They see that I'm regarding them differently, some of my thoughts shining brightly in my eyes. When I gesture them over, they do so warily, but hopefully, like beaten dogs wanting only to belong to a pack. The world around us has done that, wanting to persecute us for our changed bodies. It doesn't matter that we are lucky ones, first to have survived Goblinization, and secondly to have been among these people in the Burkut Unit.

Both young men seemed taken aback when I place a hand on their shoulders. "Fellas, we're not going to be able to avoid the outside world much longer." Grayson actually flinches at my soft words, but they both nod. "I have a proposition to keep us useful and sane. Interested?"

My heart warms at how these poor boys perk up and I feel the weight of leadership heavy on my soul. They are young and have little of my experience. Jamie even more so. For them, I will look beyond my changed face, my altered body. For them, for us, I will ignore the slings and arrows of the societies around us as the anarchy caused by Goblinization rages around us.

Jamie joins us suddenly, sweaty and eager. Moving my hand from Marco's shoulder, I reach out to gather her small body to my side, careful to not smack her with Ork-clumsy fingers.

"We four can be the greatest team this Unit has ever known. You with me?"

In their eager smiles is my future.


End file.
